One of the most troubling
crises confronting the world today is that the U.S. Executive Branch –
controlling the most fearsome arsenal in history – has largely detached
itself from reality and faces no counterforce in Washington capable of
bringing it back down to earth.

In that sense, George W.
Bush’s second Inaugural Address on Jan. 20 stood out as a defining
moment. Bush wrapped a grim record of presidential abuses – an
unprovoked invasion, extraordinary secrecy, tolerance of torture and
indefinite imprisonments without trial – in the noble cloak of “freedom”
and “liberty,” words he uttered 27 and 15 times respectively, as if
words can amend truth.

Bush’s speech also
ignored the fact that he and his supporters have consistently harassed
and denigrated dissidents at home, often by tarring them as disloyal or
crazy. Remember, for instance, the
vicious attacks from the Right against former Vice President
Al Gore in fall 2002 when he questioned the justification for rushing to
war with Iraq.

This hostility toward
dissent has continued to the present as some conservative pundits, such
as the Washington Times’ Tony Blankley, are suggesting that journalist
Seymour Hersh be investigated for espionage for writing an article in
the New Yorker about the Bush administration’s secret military
operations in Iran and elsewhere.

“Federal prosecutors
should review the information disclosed by Mr. Hersh to determine
whether or not his conduct falls within the proscribed conduct of the
[espionage] statute,” Blankley wrote. [Washington Times, Jan. 19, 2005]

Ironically, Blankley is
the editorial page editor for a newspaper financed by South Korean
theocrat Sun Myung Moon, who has vowed to eradicate American democracy
and who was identified by a congressional probe in the late 1970s as an
operative for the South Korean intelligence agency. [For details on
Moon’s background and his relationship with the Bush family, see Robert
Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.]

Professed Love

George W. Bush’s
professed love for democratic principles also appears to be stronger
when he’s lecturing other countries abstractly rather than when he’s
actually practicing the civics lessons at home. Four days after what he
called his Inaugural “freedom speech,” there was an ill-timed reminder
of Bush’s personal double standards about democracy.

The Washington Post’s Al
Kamen updated the political success stories that have followed the
Republican activists who served as Bush’s street thugs during the
Florida recount battle of four years ago. On Nov. 22, 2000, in what
became known as the “Brooks Brothers Riot” – named for the preppie
clothing of the rioters – the Bush operatives stormed Miami’s polling
headquarters, pounded on doors and roughed up Democrats, leading city
officials to abandon the counting of more than 10,000 ballots.

Though supposedly a
protest by local citizens outraged over how the recount was being
conducted, many of the participants were identified in a photo as
Republican congressional staffers and Bush campaign workers who had been
sent in to disrupt the vote counts. After the riot, the Bush campaign
threw a celebratory party that featured crooner Wayne Newton singing
“Danke Schoen.” The rioters also got a personal thank-you call from
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Bush’s
Conspiracy to Riot.”]

“Some of those pictured
[in the riot photo] have gone on to other things, including stints at
the White House,” Kamen wrote. “For example, Matt Schlapp, …, a former
House aide and then a Bush campaign aide, has risen to be White House
political director.” [Washington Post, Jan. 24, 2005]

Though Bush’s disruptive
tactics in November 2000 delayed or obstructed local recounts, the
Florida state Supreme Court ordered a statewide recount in early
December. But Bush did not sit back and meekly accept the will of the
voters. Instead, he sent his lawyers to the U.S. Supreme Court where he
got five Republican allies to block the recount and hand him the
presidency.

An unofficial recount,
later done by news organizations, found that if all legal votes had been
counted in Florida, Al Gore – not George W. Bush – would have become
President of the United States. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “So
Bush Did Steal the White House.”]

More Bare Knuckles

In Campaign 2004, Bush
again demonstrated the Bush family’s bare-knuckled approach to politics.

As in other George Bush
campaigns – by both father and son – there was the usual litany of dirty
tricks and front-group smear operations, this time, including a
well-coordinated assault on John Kerry’s Vietnam War heroism. [For
details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Reality
on the Ballot” and “Bushes
Play the ‘Traitor’ Card.”]

Other Bush campaign
tactics were designed to suppress the Democratic vote, especially in
African-American neighborhoods, by adopting aggressive “ballot security”
procedures and through the creation of long voting lines.

So, while many Republican
strongholds in the key state of Ohio had lots of voting machines and
only brief waits, many Democratic-leaning precincts were shorted on
voting machines causing delays that stretched on for hours. Many
time-pressed voters had to give up because of child-care demands at home
or the need to get to work.

Defeated candidate Kerry said the tactics suppressed the votes
of “thousands” of Americans. “Voting machines were distributed in uneven
ways,” Kerry said on Jan. 18. “In Democratic districts, it took people
four, five, 11 hours to vote, while Republicans (went) through in 10
minutes.” [For more on the voting irregularities and the post-election
battle, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Bush’s
Unaccountability Moment.”]

Instead of joining Kerry
in expressing concerns about this disenfranchisement of voters, Bush has
remained silent while his supporters have denounced challenges to voting
irregularities as “conspiracy theories.” In Ohio, Republican Attorney
General James Petro has even sought sanctions against four Election
Protection attorneys who filed a lawsuit seeking an investigation of the
Ohio balloting.

On Jan. 18, Attorney
General Petro filed a complaint with the Ohio Supreme Court calling the
election challenges “frivolous” and demanding fines and other court
sanctions against lawyers Robert Fitrakis, Susan Truitt, Cliff Arnebeck
and Peter Peckarsky. Lawyer Arnebeck responded that the real abuse of
process came from Petro and Republican Secretary of State Kenneth
Blackwell, who have refused to cooperate with the investigation into
Election Day problems.

“They are just beside
themselves because they cannot withstand cross examination,” Arnebeck
said, according to the
Columbus Free Press.

Rep. John Conyers, the
ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, wrote to Petro,
protesting the Ohio attorney general’s attempt to punish the four
lawyers.

“One would be hard
pressed to see how the legal challenges brought under the Ohio election
challenge statute were ‘frivolous,’” Conyers wrote. “It is widely known
that the Ohio presidential election was literally riddled with
irregularities and improprieties, many of which are set forth in the
102-page
report issued by the House Judiciary Committee Democratic
staff.”

Fawning Commentary

Despite this old and new
history of Bush’s highhanded approach toward democracy, newspaper and TV
commentators largely accepted Bush’s Inaugural declarations about
“freedom” and “liberty” at face value.

Though some columnists
have questioned the feasibility of Bush’s “ultimate goal of ending
tyranny in our world,” almost no one in Washington has questioned Bush’s
sincerity. The idea that Bush might be a hypocrite – hiding an
autocratic reality under the cover of democratic rhetoric – is
presumably beyond the bounds of the capital’s conventional wisdom.

The Washington Post’s
David S. Broder, known as the “dean” of the national press corps, wrote
a glowing tribute to Bush’s “eloquent” speech, which Broder cited as
proof that Bush was holding steadfast to his goal of achieving “the
worldwide realization of the ideals of freedom and democracy.”
[Washington Post, Jan. 21, 2005]

Another Post columnist
E.J. Dionne Jr. chimed in that “every American will cheer the
president’s repeated reference to the U.S. obligation to hold high the
torch of freedom.” Dionne, a supposed liberal, gushed further, “I love
what the president said about our obligation to dissidents around the
world.”

But Dionne expressed some
reservations about “whether the president has been candid about the
costs of his all-embracing vision, about how to pay for it and raise the
troops to fight it.” He also wondered “how consistently we will stand up
for embattled democratic reformers” in China, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
[Washington Post, Jan. 21, 2005]

In a follow-up column
four days later, Dionne added to these mild criticisms by noting that
White House aides and Bush’s father, former President George H.W. Bush,
had explained that the “freedom speech” didn’t signal any real change in
U.S. policies.

“People want to read a
lot into it – that this means new aggression or newly asserted military
forces,” the elder George Bush told reporters. “That’s not what the
speech is about. It’s about freedom.”

In other words, the
speech was about words, not reality.

But like other Washington
commentators, Dionne still didn’t question George W. Bush’s honesty,
only his tactics. The columnist termed this Bush “freedom shuffle” a
“terrible mistake” that might engender more cynicism that “if it spreads
further through the Muslim world, could doom the very best aspirations
of Bush’s policy.” [Washington Post, Jan. 25, 2005]

Autocratic Friends

Left out of these
formulations are always the core questions about what “freedom,”
“liberty” and “democracy” mean to the Bushes and their political allies
overseas.

The evidence is
overwhelming that the Bush family’s record is almost never one of
standing tall for human rights and in defense of democratic freedoms in
other countries. Rather, the family has a long history of coddling
autocrats and dictators, even those who have engaged in political
murders, torture and international terrorism.

Throughout his long
political career, George H.W. Bush routinely sided with tyrants, such as
Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet whose government not only repressed
dissidents inside Chile but sent “death squads” into Europe and even to
Washington to hunt down and kill political adversaries.

For instance, in
September 1976, while the senior George Bush was CIA director,
Pinochet’s assassins audaciously traveled to Washington and blew up a
car carrying Chile’s former foreign minister Orlando Letelier. Letelier
and Ronni Moffitt, an American co-worker riding in the car, were killed.

Though possessing
information implicating Pinochet’s dictatorship in the terrorist attack,
Bush’s CIA covered for Chile’s secret services by denying publicly that
the Pinochet regime was responsible and pointing investigators off in
false directions. Despite the CIA’s misleading statements, the FBI
eventually did break the case, though Pinochet and his top assistants
were never held accountable. [For details, see Parry’s
Secrecy & Privilege.]

Even two decades later,
when Pinochet was detained in London facing an extradition request from
a Spanish prosecutor investigating the murder of Spanish citizens in
Chile, the elder George Bush was still fronting for his old friend. Bush
wrote a letter to British authorities urging them to ignore the Spanish
extradition request. Following Bush’s intervention, Pinochet was allowed
to fly back to Chile, rather than face human rights charges in Spain.

Terror War

The younger George Bush
has displayed a similar selective judgment in dealing with foreign
dictators.

While justifying the
invasion of Iraq in the name of “freedom”
– after earlier claims about weapons of mass destruction proved bogus –
Bush has based many of his military operations in Persian Gulf
sheikhdoms that offer few or no democratic rights to their citizens.
Some allies in Bush’s “war on terror,” such as Uzbekistan, repress their
own people as ruthlessly as Saddam Hussein did in Iraq. [See
Consortiumnews.com’s “Bush
& Democracy Hypocrisy.”]

For good reason, this
perceived Bush hypocrisy has undercut U.S. strategies for winning
“hearts and minds” in the Islamic world. Bush’s mistaken interpretation
of al-Qaeda’s motives for waging war – as a hatred for American freedom
and a desire to destroy U.S. democracy – further hampers a coherent
strategy for prevailing in the Middle East.

As former CIA analyst
Michael Scheuer points out in his 2004 book, Imperial Hubris,
Islamic militants view their attacks against U.S. targets, including the
terror strikes on the World Trade Center, as a “defensive jihad” to
protect what they view as longstanding U.S. assaults on their land and
on their people.

“Their goal is not to
wipe out our secular democracy, but to deter us by military means from
attacking the things they love,” including their religion and their
territory, Scheuer wrote. “Bin Laden et al are not eternal
warriors; there is no evidence they are fighting for fighting’s sake.”

Rather, Scheuer wrote,
the resistance to the United States is part of what many
Muslims view as a principled struggle against a foreign power that has
sought to re-impose a form of colonialism on the Arab world. In that
sense, al-Qaeda's attacks are reprehensible but rational, the former CIA
analyst on the Middle East argued.

According to Scheuer,
U.S. policies over the past half century have “moved America from being
the much-admired champion of liberty and self-government to the hated
and feared advocate of a new imperial order, one that has much the same
characteristics as nineteenth-century European imperialism: military
garrisons; economic penetration and control; support for leaders, no
matter how brutal and undemocratic, as long as they obey the imperial
power; and the exploitation and depletion of natural resources.”

Scheuer, who wrote
Imperial Hubris under the byline “Anonymous” because he was in the
CIA at the time, also views Bush’s invasion of Iraq as
counter-productive because it confirmed many Islamic suspicions about
the United States and its motives.

Still, even with the Iraq
policy spinning out of control and Islamic hatred of the United States
soaring, Bush and much of the Washington commentariat seem content to
continue their long bath in the warm rhetoric of freedom and liberty.
They are doing so although the continued false defining of the
challenges ahead guarantee more devastation for U.S. soldiers and the
people of the Middle East.

The other option would be
to take a hard look at longstanding U.S. policies in that region, at
legitimate Arab grievances against Washington, and at the dangers caused
by continued dependence on Middle East oil. That would undoubtedly cause
much political pain and confront the nation with some wrenching choices.
It is also virtually certain not to happen, at least in the foreseeable
future.

Perhaps the one freedom
most fundamental to Bush and his many admiring columnists is the freedom
from reality.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra
stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His new book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from
Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at
secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at
Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine,
the Press & 'Project Truth.'

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